Eight Months!

Our little girl is eight months old today!  She is the funnest little girl ever.  :)

Things she can do now:

She easily eats a half a jar of baby food each evening and happily does so.  We've gone through all of the jarred vegetables I could find at the grocery store, so now we're on to the yummy stuff: fruit!  She devoured the green beans, which I was shocked at because they smelled AWFUL and looked like, well, poop.  And I haven't eaten a single green bean since, uh, childhood, so she definitely didn't develop a taste for them when I was pregnant.  Tonight she had bananas and loved them.

She rolls over!  I picked her up at daycare one afternoon and Lesley says to me, "I have something to tell you but I don't really want to," because she understands my pain of missing milestones.  I knew immediately what happened and said, "She rolled, didn't she?!".  Lesley said, "Not once, but twice!".  I was really excited and glad to hear it, so I took her home and demanded she roll for me.  Of course, she didn't.  :)  The next day I finally saw her do it AND got it on video, and it's what she does pretty consistently, now, when we put her in her crib or on the floor to play.  She also pushes pretty hard with her legs when she's on her back and can sometimes turn herself around while laying on her tummy if she's enticed by a toy or Fiona or Joe.  I'm definitely mourning the loss of the little freedom I had to leave her on the bed for five to ten minutes and know she'd be in exactly the same position I left her in when I came back.  Now she could roll right off the bed!

It's hard to leave this face in the morning.

She's got TWO teeth we can see under the gums.  Another morning at daycare Lesley asked me if she was teething to which I answered, "I don't think so...I can't see or feel anything there yet".  That afternoon she pulled out the flashlight and said "LOOK at her teeth!" and there they were, two small slits of white barely visible with the boost of light.  It IS pretty exciting to share these new milestones with someone else who thinks they're pretty exciting too!  Plus she often catches things I don't catch or can give me advice since her daughter is about a year older than Zoë.  How lucky!  Lesley says it could be a week or two before the teeth poke through.  I instantly got sad thinking about the loss of her gummy toothless smile.  It was the first time I felt immediate sadness thinking about how fast she's growing.  :(  Somehow the mental picture of her smile and how it is going to change made me especially sad.  So weird.

She is incredibly vocal making all sorts of weird sounds.  She makes them when she's eating, pooping, playing, pretending to sleep in her crib, and in the car.  Sometimes they are quite alarming until I look at her and realize she's happy and not mad.  She's enjoying blowing raspberries into her food and at random moments throughout the day.  Her grasp is inTENSE and she flails her arms so hard that if you happen to be in the way of them it'll sound like you've gotten a good slap to the face.  She grabs my face and skin now and if she holds it for long enough it can hurt.  She's still leaving her earrings alone, which is great, though she HATES getting them cleaned with a cotton ball and alcohol.

She LOVES swim lessons which we're doing twice a week at the Federal Way Community Center.  She has a great big grin on her face the entire time we're in the (freezing cold) water until the end of the half hour when the exertion has clearly caught up with her.  She does underwater glides like a champ, though I'll admit that pushing her underwater was hard on mom.

Yesterday we went to the fair (a yearly tradition for Chris and me) and, per tradition, ate our way around in a clockwise fashion from the blue gate, towards the stables, past the rides, and back again to the main pavilion.  Delicious, and Zoë had a great time looking at the animals and people watching until it started to pour, at which point she melted into unhappiness for our ride home.

I can't believe we're 2/3 of the way through her first year.  The holidays will be here before we know it and then it'll be her first birthday.  CRAZY.  It is going way too fast.  I just want her to stay little forever!

Baby's first Puyallup Fair!!!

How long until Dedo can get you some chicks for the farm?